A poker pro's pursuit of the 7 figure year while maintaining a balance of family life and sanity amid the trials and tribulations in the world of online and live poker.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Nov Results, Dec Start

November was a whatever month in poker. I really never got anything going meaning I never got in a flow of playing daily because so many things kept me busy. I had family spending days at our house at various points of the month, especially during the Thanksgiving week, and when you live in Vegas it's almost obligatory to show them around Las Vegas. Anyway here is my HEM and graph...

Yeah I ran a little bad but I'm not going to complain because everything evens out in the long run and that's what it's all about. I avg'ed a nice $500/hr in online cash games though so I'll definitely take that (20hrs total). Also I lost $2k in live games, chronicled in earlier posts in the month and another $3250 in tournaments (live and online). Overall after rakeback I made $7760.

Now w/ 1 month to go I'm planning on trying to get in 100 hrs of cash game play, just to try to make up for the last couple of months. I am in the midst of the WPT $10k main event at the Bellagio right now though. I finished day 1 today w/ 41k after starting w/ 40k. I had a really tough table w/ Randallin (kid won Festa al Lago few months ago for $1mil+), ADZ124 (high stakes cash game player and well known online kid...who surprisingly wasn't too active...maybe he was card dead, idk), some online kid named Chances Cards, Eric "BaseBaldy" Baldwin, Freddie Deeb and a couple of other competent guys.

I had a few good starting hands but never got any action on them. Also the players on my table were not giving it away so there were very few big pots. I guess I was the only one w/ a 3bet light mentality because I probably 3bet 3-4x more than the next guy all day and I didn't have a hand all the time. This probably kept me afloat above starting chips as I never won a medium+ pot. Even ADZ asked me late in the day if any of my 3bets were light because I was 3betting so much (esp. vs rest of table) and I asked him what constituted a light 3bet, and he said AQ or worse. I gave him the usual answer of I don't remember but I'm sure I could've thought of a more clever answer like I'm asian and I love to gamble, or aces and fours look the same to me so I get more aces than anybody else.

Anyway I'm gonna keep this short because it's midnight and I'm resuming day 2 at noon tomorrow. Hopefully I get a better table draw (because that really does matter in tournaments). The tournament has over 400 entrants and the neat thing about it is that registration is open til 5pm tomorrow, which is around level 8 of the tournament. You get starting chips of 40k and blinds are probably 500-1k by then. I know of guys that have registered on day 2 of a major event, and most do not end up doing well for obvious reasons.

Finally another video comes out on Cardrunners on Friday where I play 5/10 6max and hu. I end up getting pwned in hu...lol...but not because I was outmatched. You'll have to watch to see.

Hopefully my next blog post will be about me winning $1mil+ and this WPT main event!

**For those of you that want a good sweat of me winning this thing, you can follow me on twitter at

About Me

Grew up in so cal, went to UCLA, but spent more time at Commerce and other local casinos than studying, hence in the position I am in today. Nowadays play mostly online, w/ some live sessions and tournaments sprinkled in. Screen name is Nicolak on most poker sites. I am a cohost on Cash Plays at www.PokerRoad.com. I am a pro/vid maker at www.Cardrunners.com as well. Married to a wonderful wife of 13 years w/ one 10 yr old girl and 3 dogs. You can email me at nicolak4@hotmail.com and follow me at twitter (nicolakpoker). Come check out my new coaching site www.stackemcoaching.com !